Welcome to my 1997 Alaska Adventure!

Part 3 of 4
(Remainder of our King Salmon fishing)

Enjoy!

THURSDAY: Milt and I get up for some early back drifting. Man, what a zoo! I stopped counting boats at 70. We estimate there were well over 100 boats between camp and Eagle Rock. Navigating through that was like threading a needle with a Buick! We didn't have any kings on, but we saw several. The ratio wasn't very good though - five kings, hundreds of hooks in the water...

Morning reports talked of 800 kings into the mouth of the Kenai. By my count, 795 of them got past this gauntlet. Incredible!

After some drifting and back drifting, we came in for a short time. Bev and the girls are going back to Anchorage today, for a couple of days, and they want to fish for reds one more time. SO, the plan is to drop the kids off on the sand bar and go drifting for kings again (Bev, Milt, Kathy and I).

So, we got the kids up and ready then Milt took them to the bar as Bev, Kat and I got ready. While we motored up near the sand bar (the beginning of our drift) I re-rigged Milt's pole and my own for drifting, as they were rigged for back drifting (down riggers instead of sinkers). As we began drifting, I noticed how crowded the sand bar was again... ...SHEESH!

Suddenly, WHAMO! "Fish On", yells Bev! On her first drift of the day! Hot damn, a king! 60 seconds of pandemonium as people switched seats (Bev was in the back, a bad place to fight a king from), maneuver the boat out of the drift lane, extend and hold up the net and start takin' pictures!

Bev was saying "I just hope I don't lose it before I see it!" After about 8-10 minutes, she got it to the surface, near the boat. Milt went to net it and it bolted, but only for a moment before Milt could net it. Before bringing it aboard, Bev had to decide whether or not she wanted to keep it (if you plan to release it, you can not bring it out of the water, even to remove the hook). "I'm keeping him.", she

says, so we haul him aboard and bop him with the bonker (small baseball bat), till his eyes light up. Bev said "since I can't king fish anymore, bring me back to camp, we can drop off the king and I can grab my fly rod. Then you can drop me off with the kids on the bar." So, we headed in.

Bev's king weighed 38 pounds. We headed back up and dropped Bev off at the bar. The kids already had about 6 reds. Kat, Milt and I continued drifting, to no avail. Bev had caught the only king today. After 3 drifts, Milt decided that we'd go to the bar to get Bev and one of the kids, to get dinner started. Then get the rest of them.

When we got to the bar, all the kids were sitting in a circle upon the bar. I joked about the intrepid fishermen... When we anchored in, Bev and Monica came up, Monica holding a tissue up to her eye...

She had hooked a red and decided to drag it up onto the bar instead of having someone net it for her. As she was pulling this 8-pound fish across the dry stones, the line snapped at the hook! The tension in the line and pole fired the sinker back at her as though it was fired from a gun! The lead sinker hit just below her left eye, shattering her sunglasses and leaving a nasty bruise. Joey gave me the shattered remains of her glasses. She was complaining of feeling something in her eye and when Milt checked, he found a 1/4" wide piece of glass floating under her lower lid. He was able to remove it without issue, but it was clear that she needed to see a specialist right away!

She was also wearing contact lenses at the time, but was able to get them out and they didn't contribute to the injury. We quickly motored her back to camp and prepared for their trip to Anchorage while Milt went back for the rest of our party. Bev called Anchorage and arranged for a doctor's appointment, ate a quick lunch and we're off! It's times like this that you realize just how remote we are. Although this is a popular place with thousands of tourists, we were over 4 hours from the nearest medical team that could handle such an accident.

The rest of the day was lazy, while we awaited word about Monica.

She's fine! They could find no scratches on the eye, although she'll have quite the shiner when all is said and done.

We drifted again, no activity. After supper (lasagna), we went out to get firewood from one of the road construction sites. Firewood! SURE! These downed trees wouldn't be firewood until a LOT of work was done! Jim cut them into 5-foot logs, while Joe, Milt and I loaded them onto the trailer. Heck, some of these things were a foot and a half thick! After filling the trailer with about two and a half cords of wood, we came back and unloaded it all. Milt and Jim went back for another load! When they returned they decided to leave it on the trailer for the night. We'll cut it up in the morning. GAWD, I'm tired!

FRIDAY:  Woke up... ...yep, the wood is still there, only there's and additional element... ...pain. Ok, ok, ok, past the pain, out for a king run. We were going to go down stream to back-drift the incoming tide, but since we were already rigged for drifting, Milt decided to do one or 2 drifts up at our regular spot first. After our first drift I expected Milt to motor down stream, but he decided to do one more drift.

FISH ON! I've nailed my first king of the season! Now I realize just how sore my arms really are! I'd pump that salmon in and he'd peel line off. After about 10-15 minutes, I have it near the boat. It was small (20-25 pounds), but what a fighter! As I surface him near the boat, Milt whips out his trusty "switch-net" and promptly cuts that sucker loose! Actually, what happened was, as Milt took the net to the fish, the fish dove and the sinker got snagged in the net and the line broke. "Shit, shit, shit!", Milt could be heard to say...

Hey, it happens. We both acknowledged that it was so small we would've released it anyway. I think Milt felt real bad about it, but I've fished often enough to know how things like this can happen. Point is, I hooked one!

"The King and I"

Later this morning, we went out with Kathy, and I nailed a second one! This one was small also, but fought like a woman scorned! Milt was extra careful netting this one and I was grateful as I thought my arms were going to fall off! It was kinda red, but I kept it anyway (The redder they are, the longer they've
	been in the river and the lower the quality of meat). But I had one! (34 pounds) Milt said it was a male, but it looked like a female to me (2 pounds of eggs proved me right). We caught this early in the day, our second drift, so we drifted a few more times and...

...FISH ON! Kathy this time! The kings were really in now! Gawd! This thing was either BIG or foul hooked, to put up this kind of fight! Kathy kept losing the tip and Milt and I are yelling "Tip Up!" Kathy was really getting tired and didn't think she could do this! Then she got "slack line"! Damn, she lost it!

NO! I told her to keep reeling in and, sure enough, she could feel the fish again (I think part of that was her hoping that this was over... *S*) The fight was on again! Finally, she surfaced the king only for us to discover that she had snagged it in the belly. Then, as Milt tried to net it, it dove and tore the hook out! What an experience! Kathy could not believe the kind of fight they put up nor the fact that this thin fish line could hold it! WHEW!

After lunch, we went out again (hey, with enough reds to fill a chest freezer, and their run being almost over, we've decided to hit the kings hard! And we are!)

This time, with Milt, Kathy, Jennifer and I. Jen wasn't too thrilled about king fishing. Boring, she called it, just sittin' in a boat...

Mind you, I can't fish anymore as I've gotten my limit of one king per day. So I'm just a spectator/photographer. Along about our third drift, Jen calls out "Hey, is this a snag?" Milt and I look over and, at the same time, yell...

"FISH ON! Reel in!"

I moved up to help her. She was having a helluva time keeping that rod up and reeling at the same time. Everybody was yelling commands at her, as she strained against the pull of the king. She seemed to be losing the fight. The tip was down, we saw slack line, she was losing her first king! I went to check the drag and noticed a tear in the metal clip that holds the reel to the rod. That could be problematical, so I kept an eye on it.

Then, sure enough, I noticed that the reel was working itself loose, so I tightened up the thumbnut to clamp that reel down (the tear was longer).

The reel wouldn't stay tight and as I went to tighten it down again, it let loose! So, Jen's trying to keep the tip up while Kathy helps and steadies the pole. I'm holding the reel onto the pole while Jen works to
	reel this beast in! Suddenly, it dives under the boat and, to keep the line from getting cut on the edge of the boat, we had to swing the pole around to the other side of the boat. Picture that, if you will... what a riot! Two adults and an 11 year old doing a dance on the bow of a bouncing boat hanging onto a monster who wants to be elsewhere! I stole a glance at Milt... ...talk of a shit
eatin' grin! He knew we would never get this fish in under these conditions, and I knew it too. Jen was too young to realize how hopeless this really was.

But we fought to the end; that we did. Hell, it was her first king! What's a dad to do? So we fought it, tooth and nail. It was comical, in a way. Certainly awe inspiring (ok, maybe that's a stretch...) After about 10-15 minutes, much to everyone's surprise, the fish surfaced! Milt was ready with the net and DONE!

She did it! Jen had her first king! And under MOST unusual circumstances too! At 44 pounds, it's also the largest king landed by us this season! What a way to be introduced to king fishing!  As it turns out, what happened to Jen's pole is that the reel clasp tore all the way through.  Unusable for any fishing, yet suitable for a 44 pound King salmon!

We decided to cop out on dinner. So Milt ran into town for pizza. After that, Jim cut up all that wood with Milt, Linda, Joe, Kathy and I helping to haul it to the woodpile. Man, I didn't know I'd be WORKING here!

That done, we went on our last king run of the day with Kathy and Joey. Several drifts and a few snags later, we called it a night. Joey has yet to even see a king caught! He said he is convinced there are no kings in this river. Rather, that there is a store up-river where we are buying them and bringing them back to camp!

Relax and bed. More kings tomorrow...

SATURDAY:

Up for a 7:30 run (able to sleep in later because we're going out to meet the incoming tide). We headed upstream for some drifting. We forgot our salmon eggs, so we fished with dry hooks. On our second drift, I hooked one!

FISH ON! I only had him for a moment before I lost him. We drifted some more, then headed to camp to get some eggs before heading downstream to back-drift. We had no activity back drifting, so we came back to camp after a while.

Milt said we'd go out again around noontime (it's 10:00 now), maybe after lunch. With a couple of hours to kill we decided to take the kids into town for showers (we were all kinda rank...), and to do laundry and shopping. We returned, ate lunch and headed out, yet again, with Mimi and Jennifer. During our second drift, Milt hooked one! Gentleman that he is, he gave the pole to mom and the fight was on!

Now, mom's none to steady on her feet, even on dry land, and without a thrashing animal at the end of a long line! So I played the role of ballast, trying like hell to keep my mother inside the boat. She was having a hell of a time with this fish! At one point, as the king peeled off, she lost her grip on the pole. If I didn't have my hands right there, we surley would have lost the rod. Now, while

this was all going on we hear Jennifer whimper. Milt looks back only to discover that she has driven the hook from her rod into her thigh and the line is too tight for her to remove! While Milt is helping her out, and I'm anchoring my mom to the deck, Beverly calls on the cell phone!

"Not now Bev, we're fighting a king and Jen's hooked up with her rigging!"

Finally, after about 20 minutes Milt said "give me the pole, we have to get that fish up or we'll lose it." So, mom reluctantly gives up the pole and Milt surfaces the king. Now we know why mom had so much trouble with this thing. It was hooked in the tail! Just before we could get a net on it, it broke the line and swam off.

The local reports have about 10,000 kings into the mouth of the Kenia to date. So, by my count, the tally is:

River Kings: 9,994

Intrepid KingFishers: 6

We're closing the gap!

We were near camp at this point, so we dropped Jen off and took Joey out for a bit. Not even one hit! We've concluded that kings don't like the smell of week-old Joe Flis... Every time we go out with Joe, nobody gets anything!

We had chicken for dinner - roasted on the grill. We cleaned up and went on our final run of the day.

Kathy, Joe, Milt and I went out with high hopes for Joey. About the third drift I nailed it!

FISH ON!

Everyone reeled in and then I gave the pole to Joey. He looked so bored, it was pitiful! Joe took the pole and began to fight this strong adversary. None of us knew just how strong it could be. It took 10 minutes of staunch fighting this beast before we realized that the beast was the bottom of the river and no matter how much resolve Joey had, it wasn't commin' up!

We're gonna nick-name him "o'fer" because, to date, he's "o'fer four" (0 for 4)... I will say this, I've never seen him with a bigger smile in all my life (if you exclude Christmas). I can't wait for him to fight a king for real!

SUNDAY:

More king stories! Oh, by the way, we did a count. During our week of red fishing, we landed 89 reds, almost 900 pounds worth!

Well, standard routine. Milt wakes up to the sound of the boats, starts coffee and heads into town for a newspaper. When he returns, he gets me up, we have coffee and head on out.

Today, we're doing long drifts down past Eagle Rock. Son of a gun! I've hooked another one! My fourth this trip! An interesting fight too, but not too long. He was small, only about 25 pounds, and hooked cleanly in the mouth. He was also bright as a newly minted quarter! Beautiful fish... ...and I let him go! That would've been my second, and last king of the season, and I ain't done fishin' yet!

Before we came back to camp, Milt had hooked one of his own, but lost it in a quick fight. We never did see it. When we got back, Bev and the girls were back (as were the dogs). Gary and his family came by too (we met Gary, long time friends of Bev and Milt, last week), with their boat. After some social time, they went fishing. Bev went in for a nap, Milt got the four kids to go on a king run so Kat and I went into town.

We had leftovers for dinner tonight. Ribs, chicken, pizza, whatever we could find. ''Twas good too. The kids didn't catch any kings on their run, but Joe got another snag. Maybe we'll call him snagglepuss... After dinner, the kids showed us the potato gun. What a hoot! Fires potato slugs half way across the river!

Our last king run included Bev, Mom, Milt and I. We hooked one, momentarily. Caught a few snags, but no landings tonight. On the way back to camp, we saw a small king (about 20 lbs.) leaping out of the water with a hook in its mouth, trailing a lure. Weird.

	Upon our return, we cooked marshmallows and listened to Fritz tell stories of his youth and times in war. We also heard about how he and mom met. What a romantic Fritz is! Mom and Fritz tell us good night, they are leaving in the morning and expect to be gone before we get up. I am giving mom my mini tape recorder.
I want her to record Fritz's stories. I would like to transcribe them and get them published. They offer a whole new light on the soldiers of Hitler and also war-torn Russia during W.W.II. Historically significant, I would think.

MONDAY:

You guessed it. Milt gets me up just as the coffee is ready. The difference this morning is that Bev and Kat are joining us! Boy, Bev gets the Kenia award for snags! Her first snag tied her and Milt into a drifter's knot that no Boy Scout could fathom and the lures had to be cut from both lines. Her second snag happened so quickly at the beginning of our drift that I don't think we drifted the width of our boat! Four of us all set to fish, we cast out, one after the other like an angler's ballet: cast, cast, cast, cast, SNAG!, reel in, reel in, reel in, reel in...

She did atone for this thought by calling out "FISH ON!" instead of "SNAG". It took a bit of work (all of these kings do), but she landed it. A bright 34 pounder. We filleted it, if you could imagine fillets over 30 inches long! I had never considered filleting such a large fish. I'll have to try that next time.

When we got back, we discovered the water pump switch was broken (we suspected so last night), so that has to be fixed today. We ate a nice lunch and Milt and I took Joey and Monica for a king run. We went way down river to catch the incoming tide. It was not long before I saw Joe's pole fold over and start twitching...

"FISH ON!", I yelled! Joe had one! We all reeled in and Joe began reeling and pumping that pole! In no time at all he landed his catch! A dolly-Varden trout... ...But, not just any Dolly, NO! This was an Alaskan King Dolly! 14 ounces, I figure...

It wasn't long before Milt called out "FISH ON!" and, again we all reeled in, but this one was for real! Then he gave his pole to Monica to fight. I leaned into him and said "Hey, when do YOU get to fight one?" His response? "Heck, I don't need to." What a dad! Well, Monica gets to fight a king and Joe at least gets to see what such a fight is like. Milt commented to me that he saw it leap out of the water that noted that it was foul hooked in the tail and we'd have to release it. But, it's still a fun and fantastic fight!

However, tails are much softer than salmon lips and after about 10-15 minutes, the king tore itself free from the hook and got away. When we got back, we took the kids to the mall and did some shopping. Upon our return, we found Bev packing some stuff up so I helped. With the reds all gone, we packed up all the fly rods and reels as well as all the waders. It's sad to think that our Kenia fishing trip is near its end.

Milt got the pump switch fixed, we have running water again. When we were up in 1995, I made my classic western omelets. They were such a hit that everyone wanted them again, but for dinner, not breakfast. So, I'm the cook tonight! They all loved it and I didn't make near the mess I did last time!

We did some more packing, including putting the dog kennel on the trailer. The last king run of the day included Bev, Milt and I (I've gone on all but one run, to date!) We nailed a few snags. I even called "Fish On!" once, only to discover that it was a snag. Embarrassing at best, seeing as that marks the third time I've done that! Then I called "FISH ON" again, and really had one!

I knew, from the start, if it was not a monster I wasn't going to keep it. Suddenly, it leaped out of the water, 50 feet away. I kept the tension up, another height leap, 15 feet away, then under the boat right towards the prop. I tried to pull him back, then SNAP and the line went slack... I knew I had lost him, but I also knew from experience, that you never say that till you see the hook or the end of the line, so I kept on reeling.

Son Of A Bitch! I still had him! I have no idea what happened in the back of the boat, but I still had my king! Then he leaped again, not 2 feet from the boat. He kicked his tail so hard that he got Bev and I soaked! It still took a while, he was a scrappy little guy, but we netted him! He was about 25 pounds. We took a photo then released him. My fifth so far!

One we kept, one cut loose while netting, and three released. As Milt said "this is good fishin', when you can release a beautiful king like that because you know your chances are good at catching another one." I couldn't agree more. I can't think of a better way to spend a day!

We leave on Wednesday - I figure I have maybe 5 more king runs left. Time to land that 76 pounder I dreamt about! When we got back, we had to make up some more king rigs (have lost and damaged a lot this week). Bev suggested the adults play a game of May-I (sounds good to me). The kids want to go to DQ for a sundae. When they left, it got so quiet and peaceful, I was convinced "D.Q." stood for "Damn Quiet"!

May-I is a progressive rummy game consisting of 7 different hands, lowest score wins. I was holding my own till the 4th hand when I went deep into third place (Kathy was first). Kathy lost the last hand SO bad that I won! Bev came in last with a score that was so high that it was exactly equal to the combined scores of Milt, Kathy and me! As an aside, during our last drift, Milt was complaining about how much the dogs stink. Milt and Bev clarified for us that they didn't mean body odor/wet dog smell, they meant gas...

WELL, I didn't realize the significance of this until we started playing May-I in the camper...

...with three dogs...

Hell, I had to go outside between hands to catch my breath! Talk about rank! I told Milt to do like the mechanics do in an auto garage. Pipe an exhaust hose from each dog to the outside!

Bev says that sometimes the dogs will fart loudly then look at their own ass real quick as if trying to identify the source of the noise. I said that's probably not why the look. It's most likely that little spichtner flutter from the fart. They're wondering what's trying to crawl up their butts!

What a night! See you in the morning.

TUESDAY:

Second to last day. Bev, Milt and I open our eyes to coffee and the newspaper, then hit the river. As is typical for these early morning runs, I dress in layers. T-shirt, flannel shirt, hooded sweatshirt, hat and gloves. The past three days, however, have been hotter than hell. As soon as we get to the boat, we begin peeling off layers. This morning was no different and I almost left these extra layers behind. Good thing I didn't. During the second drift, It went from hot and clear as a bell to cool with heavy overcast with spots of blue. By the end of the third drift, it was cold with a solid fog bank 200 feet up, no sign of sun. The temperature dropped about 15-20 degrees in 10 minutes!

Bev hooked a king but lost it after a few seconds. We didn't land any, but we did see six other boats land them. So the kings are there and they're hitting the lures. Right after lunch, we're going down stream to catch the incoming tide. We got back in and Kathy was up and the kids were just beginning to stir. One interesting site was to see a big king jumping out of the water, several times. Talk about a sure-fire way to fire the blood up in a fisherman!

A tasty lunch of caribou hotdogs, and back out on the river. We went way down river this time (Bev, Kat, Milt and I) and spent a couple of hours drifting. The wind had really picked up and it became near impossible to maintain a true drift, so we called it. We did get to see the two baby eagles test their wings for the first time. "Babies", heck these birds are as big as mama eagle. Only difference is that they are all brown, not the characteristic black and white of and adult. They would stand on the edge of the nest, facing the wind. Then they would spread their wings to catch air and jump! Three feet, straight up, and gently float back down. They did this many times as "mom" looked on.

Before dinner, Milt took Tara, Joe and Jen out on a king run. Kathy, Bev and I went into town for a bit, then took a nap. The kids returned, no kings, one dolly, several snags...

For dinner, we had steaks on the grill (mmm, good!). We have gotten all of our luggage packed and on the truck. Time for one more run in kings. Kathy wasn't feeling well, so Bev, Milt and I went. This has been a very frustrating day! We caught a couple of dolly's and snags, but no kings. We'd been nailing one nearly every outing this past week!

We did see the cutest family of ducklings though! All sitting on the shore, resting. It's nighttime now. Things have quieted down. The kids are pushing the limit though. Noisy and fighting, or just goofing off. They say they are older now and deserve to be treated as adults yet they fail to realize that they do not act like adults yet.

We did see the cutest family of ducklings though! All sitting on the shore, resting. It's nighttime now. Things have quieted down. The kids are pushing the limit though. Noisy and fighting, or just goofing off. They say they are older now and deserve to be treated as adults yet they fail to realize that they do not act like adults yet.

They fail to share well (like sleeping spots in the tent) and argue about their responsibilities instead of quietly performing them. Well, they'll learn and we'll do our best to teach.

WEDNESDAY:

Last day on the Kenia! Milt and I took out early in hopes of one last king before we leave. When we went out, there was only one other boat along the mile of river we traversed. Within an hour, the river was full of hopeful fishermen and women. While we hooked many snags, we did not hook a single king. Nor, for that matter, did anyone else. Sadly, we pulled into camp to complete the task of closing the camp down and pulling the boat from the water. Milt will be down in September to check on the place and put a tarp over the 2 campers. I've enjoyed my time on the Kenia and look forward to setting another hook in her offspring, the king. The trip back to Anchorage was quiet and uneventful, stopping occasionally to rest and stretch our legs. When we got back we must shower and clean and prepare for our trip to Denali (we leave Friday morning).

Bev and Milt and the girls will be preparing for their caribou hunt next week. Four ATV's and two trailers for a 50-mile trek into the wilds of central Alaska, beginning about 5 hours north of Anchorage. I hope to make that trip with them next year.

Kathy is near complete with the laundry. We will finish cleaning in the morning. It's good not to smell like fish for the first time in 2 weeks! Plus, my fingernails are no longer pink from the salmon eggs! We will do our shopping and packing for Denali tomorrow. We also got our first 8 rolls of film developed. Many great shots, but not as many as in 1995. The weather has not cooperated. When we are in the plains it is bright and sunny. When we are in the mountains, it is cloudy and dark. Oh well.

 [If you've enjoyed this part of my journal (Part 3 of 4), please go onto Part 4!)

Copyright, ©2000, James M. Flis